Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Consumers in California who buy bottled water from Safeway thinking it’s a healthier alternative to tap water may have to reexamine this assumption. The source of the Safeway store brand “purified” water is none other than the city of Merced in the Central Valley, which has been selling its tap water to a store-owned water bottling plant since 2002. The grocery retailer pays Merced approximately $1,000 a month for more than a million gallons of water, filters the water at its plant, and then resells it for just under $3 million
Safeway does not tell consumers that the water they’re buying is just reprocessed tap water, only that it was bottled in Merced. Consumer advocates and environmentalists complain that what Safeway is doing is part of a larger problem. According to the Sierra Club, companies like Nestle, Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola have been depleting aquifers and springs across the country in order to meet the demand for alternatives to tap water.
Lawmakers in the California Legislature may put a stop to the practice of Safeway and other businesses selling repackaged tap water without telling shoppers. New legislation (AB 301) would require bottling facilities to register with the state and disclose the source of their water on retail labels.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Merced's Water Bottled by Safeway, Resold at a Profit (by Jonah Owen Lamb, Merced Sun-Star)
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